Corduroy Mansions

Alexander McCall Smith's spiffing online novel Corduroy Mansions prompts Mr G to an enthusiastic 'Ding dong!'

But enough of this year's Gnome Bell Prize for Literature. It's enough to say that the prolific McCall Smith has scored another hit with his new story, published in daily installments on the Daily Telegraph website.

You can read the text, or, like me, you can listen to Andrew Sachs' brilliant reading of it, online or downloaded to our MP3.

McCall Smith has chosen west London as his setting, deploying a large cast of characters in and around the eponymous block of flats.

They are a rum assortment: an odious MP (a Lib Dem - tsk!), a young gay man with a problem (he's worried he might be straight), a kindly health shop proprietess (with a missionary zeal for colonic irrigation), a wine merchant suffering the agonies of not-yet-empty-nest syndrome and a dog who's the reluctant focus of a dog-share scehme. And many more...

This witty, humane observer of the human (and canine) comedy is becoming so popular that I guess it's a matter of not much time before it becomes trendy to revile him.

Meanwhile, my only problem is the looks I get when I start laughing on the bus, while listening to the latest installment on my iPod.

Train of thought

There's a cocoon-like cosiness to a railway journey in optimum (clean, uncrowded) conditions.

No intriguing interruptions or overheard conversations on a recent journey to Oxford.

Instead, the luxury of 'blank space' between the connectedness of the rest of the day. Disengagement. Peace.

The sense of separation increased by the silvery sheen of flooded fields and the sudden uplift of a hundred gulls as the train rattles past.

Time to relish the new 'Scotland Street' novel from Alexander McCall Smith, the fifth of his witty commentaries on contemporary life in Edinburgh's well-heeled New Town.

Originally published in short daily instalments in The Scotsman, the books follow a diverse bunch of characters as they negotiate the chances and choices of city life.

Smith's eye is kindly, but gimlet sharp - the books are definitely 'comfort' reading, but not too comfortable.... Watch out for the barbs.

Readers vary in their nominations for 'most loved' and 'most loathed' characters.

I have to admit to a soft spot for poor Irene Pollock - the wildly misguided uber-mother whose gifted six-year-old son is the focus of what she terms the 'Bertie project' - 'advanced' child-rearing taken to gloriously ludicrous extremes. Poor Bertie.

But then there's Angus Lordie, Domenica, hapless Matthew, the egregious Bruce, Pat and, my favourite, self-educated, unlucky-in-love cafe proprietess Big Lou....

More info at Alexander McCall Smith.